


The Haunting

by pyrokid



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Ashton is a bit of a murderer, Betrayal, He wanted to keep Luke forever, I'm Bad At Tagging, Luke comes back as a Ghosty Boi, Luke is Dead From The Get-Go, M/M, Major Character Undeath, Mentions of Violence, Mentions of black magic, Not unbearably but still, Partner Betrayal, Please Don't Hate Me, Random & Short, Short, also please read this i’m desperate for Validation, and summaries, so he killed and taxidermied him, this is dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:42:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22194253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrokid/pseuds/pyrokid
Summary: Ashton kills Luke and has him taxidermied. Luke comes back as a ghost, or what Ashton thinks is a drunken and guilty hallucination.Loosely based off of that one TikTok noise “Arms Tonite” (hey you don’t you think it’s kinda cute that i died right inside your arms tonight- yeah that one) and extreeeemely loosely based off of The Haunting by Set It Off
Relationships: Luke Hemmings/Ashton Irwin
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i had to publish and then unpublished this cause i was really thinking about uploading all the parts to it but then i realised the other parts suck and so this is a standalone thing but with like, a short epilogue to be uploaded in a few minutes. anyway, have fun reading :)

“Hey, Ashy.”

One voice. One sickeningly sweet voice that he could never forget. Two words. Two words he’s looked forward to hearing, even after he taxidermied the body and burned everything that could’ve been used as evidence in Luke’s disappearance in a seemingly abandoned field. The body was kept out of anyone else’s sight, out of their minds. Ashton knew where he was, though; that was the point of preserving him.

Many emotions ripped through him all at once, his entire body almost visibly shaking. The main emotion was fear; fear that his former lover had somehow survived and came back to exact his revenge. The second was happiness; joy that his love had survived and come back to forgive him and start over.

He didn’t want to turn around. Hell, he didn’t bother to turn around.

“Don’t you miss me, Ashton?” The pout could be heard in Luke’s voice.

Suddenly, Ashton couldn’t look away and ignore it any more. 

There stood Luke. Luke Hemmings. Ashton’s tall, blond haired, lovely blue eyed, pink lipped angel. But, there was something off about him. He just didn’t look... real.

“That’s because I’m not,” he said. “I’m a figment of your twisted mind. You feel guilty that you killed me on this exact day, six months ago.” The blond shrugged, almost giggling and knowing that he was lying to Ashton. “Has it felt like forever?”

Ashton gawked at Luke, or Luke’s ghost or whatever he was. He gawked at Luke, not knowing what to say. It was hard to process seeing your dead boyfriend after six months. 

“It’s felt like years.” Ashton didn’t realise that he was speaking, doing it involuntarily. “Every day without you truly alive has felt like a hundred years.” 

“Has it?” Luke bowed his head and asked softly. 

“I wish I could take it all back, Angel. Killing you was the worst decision I made.” 

“I bet it was.” Luke took a step closer to Ashton, a sneering look on his face. “Or maybe the worst decision you could’ve made was loving me back. You should’ve said no, then we wouldn’t be in this predicament, now would we?” he said harshly. The words bit into Ashton, making him visibly flinch.

“But what about you? You were in love with me most of your life! I mean, I could say the same about myself but that’s not the point here- the point is, the point is-“

Luke stepped even closer, less than an arm’s length away from him. He reached out and touched the side of Ashton’s face softly. For just a second, Luke’s hand felt real and warm and comforting and everything Ashton missed about the blond. “Baby, you’re rambling,” he mumbled. “There’s a simple solution to this problem.”

At this point, Ashton was crying. Not full on sobbing, but there were tears slipping out. He was weak, weak for someone- no, something that wasn’t even fucking there. Luke was just some hallucination of guilt, due to the amount of alcohol Ashton drank tonight. Yeah, that was it. Drunk hallucination of his dead boyfriend. He didn’t need to listen to Luke, because that’s all Luke was. A very, very, extremely drunk hallucination.

“I’m as real as you, Ash. Just not.... corporeal. You can try convincing yourself that I’m some alcohol induced vision, but I’m not.”

“You can’t be real.” Ashton shook his head. 

“If I wasn’t real, would I know about how you shiver in your sleep? By the way, I’m the reason behind that. You look so... conflicted and sad when you sleep, and the best way to fix something like that was for me to hold you while you slept. Still works, apparently,” he explained and shrugged. “You don’t have to cry, or feel guilty, or whatever. We can be together again.”

“I’m going in-fucking-sane! There is no way to fix the fact that I murdered you because I had the the bright idea to keep you forever instead of just living my life with you! We could’ve gotten married, Angel. We could’ve had kids, and- and, those two little white chowchow dogs you wanted. We could’ve had a life together.” He sank to the floor, the was-possible future finally consuming him. 

“I know a few people, Ashton. They have special... abilities. One of them could bring me back! I told them you still had my body, they just need you, me, and my body.”

Ashton looked up. There was no way Luke could come back. Was there?

Without completely thinking their options through, Ashton knew what Luke was insinuating. “Necromancy,” Ashton breathed out. He’s only seen it in movies. Could it really work?

“Exactly.”


	2. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Luke coming back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is kinda fucked up but also shit cause it doesn’t go into detail but it gets the point across

Ashton listened to Luke. It took a few hours of back and forth, “You’re not real!” and, “Yes, I am!” but they finally came to an understanding. 

Luke apparently knew a girl who came from a long line of practitioners of voodoo, mainly necromancy. As long as she had the body and the ghost, she could reanimate them. So, a few days later, once Ashton fully sobered up, he carried Luke’s hidden-in-a-really-big-instrument-case body to the back of a truck he had borrowed from a friend. They sat in the truck together, Luke telling him where Zapheira was located.

This was nothing new for Zaph. She was one of the strongest necromancers of her family, and one of the strongest healers. Luke’s body being filled with sawdust and his eyes resin-injected wouldn’t be a problem. Once he was reanimated, the sutures, sawdust, and his organs would find their respective places; the sutures and sawdust’s being the trash, and his organs in, well, their respective places. The resin in his eyes and the chemicals preventing his skin from rotting would dissolve, and all Luke had to do when he got home was shower. 

Without going into extreme detail, the reanimation was successful. Luke’s heart was beating again while his lungs were trying to overcompensate for six months of being dead. The first thing he did after breathing again was look around Zapheira’s shop, then he put his hands in front of his face and wiggled his fingers around. He forgot what it was like to move in a corporeal body. “I’m alive,” he breathed out. “If I weren’t gay, I’d kiss you, Zaph.” He laughed as he sat up and practically jumped off of the table, dashing to the other corner of the room to hug Ashton (who still sat in disbelief at what he saw.)

Ashton hesitated to wrap his arms around the blond and return the hug, his brain still refusing to catch up on everything that’s happened in the past 24 hours. Finally after a good few seconds of at least attempting to get up to speed, he returned Luke’s affection. “I hate to break it to you, Angel, but you  reek of death and preserving agents.”

Zapheira smiled lightly at the reunited couple before speaking. “Get him home, Ash. He needs to shower and rest. I also need you to check where his stitches were, make sure the sutures are gone and that the scars aren’t terrible. I’d do it but I have no clue where you put them. If he starts coughing up sawdust or blood, bring him back.” She sounded like a doctor. 

Ashton nodded and took Luke’s hand, leading him to the truck that would take them home. 

—-

After a while, let’s say... about five months? Everyone was finally settling down about Luke “coming back home from a little off the grid time in Italy” and no one suspected a thing other than why he needed off the grid time. It took Ashton every bit of a month of those five to really comprehend Luke being back and not just a statue in the corner. Every morning he woke up with a warm Luke latched onto him was another morning of initial panic, but after a good two seconds of realising that it wasn’t some hallucination, he held Luke closer and fell asleep again. 

Around the sixth month, on the anniversary of Luke’s initial death and almost six months after his undeath, was when weird shit started to happen.

Almost every day, there was something new wrong with Ashton’s car. First it was some cut brake lines, then it was the disconnected fuel line, and then apparently the oil drain plug had been loosened and was extremely close to blowing up the engine. If you’re not motor savvy, what all of that means is someone was trying to kill Ashton. All of those things could and usually do have fatal consequences. 

After he fixed all of it, whoever was trying kill him stopped. Until exactly six months after Luke’s undeath day. The morning of, Luke had made breakfast to celebrate. That afternoon, they went out with a few friends to catch up. They came home from that outing, and then decided to make a few drinks, watch movies, and stay in for the rest of the night. 

Ashton had fallen asleep first around 2AM. Luke remained up, unable to sleep because all he could think was,  _ Why isn’t anything fucking working? _ Then he decided to go about the situation in a more direct manner. So, he made sure not to wake Ashton as he went to the kitchen and grabbed a knife, coming back upstairs. He slit Ashton’s throat from just about ear to ear, and then his own.

They’d be happy together.

Forever.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact, not all of my work is weird and based on death like this is. i’m pretty sure most of the stuff i’m working on is actually smut lmao


End file.
